Things to Know About the Pope’s Visit to the U.S. and Cuba

Pope Francis traveled from New York City to Philadelphia, where he was greeted by thousands of followers on Saturday, the first of two days that would round out his eight-day visit to the U.S. and Cuba. In the U.S. portion of his trip, the pontiff also spent time in Washington, D.C., where he met with President Barack Obama and Congress. Francis, 78 years old, has shown a clear preference for the developing world, and this could be the only time he sets foot in the U.S.

This trip could well be the only visit Pope Francis makes to the U.S. During his 27 years as pope, St. Pope John Paul II came five times. But during Pope Benedict’s eight-year papacy, the pontiff visited the U.S. just once, in 2008. Pope Francis has shown a preference for the developing world. Before the U.S., just one of his nine trips was to a developed country, South Korea. So it will undoubtedly be a long time, if ever, before this pope visits American soil again.

The trip to the U.S. and Cuba is the longest in duration undertaken yet by Pope Francis. By the time he returns to Rome on Monday, the trip will have lasted eight days, 23 hours and 45 minutes. He will have traveled nearly 12,000 miles. Pope Francis isn’t an enthusiastic traveler, but he has already covered almost 72,700 miles in 10 trips as pope, compared with the 99,419 miles his predecessor Benedict traveled in eight years. But both lag far behind John Paul, who covered more than 683,500 miles.

Celebrities have caught Francis-mania this week too. Aretha Franklin and Mark Wahlberg were headlining a concert for the Festival of the Families on Saturday night. But others have gotten into the act. On his CBS show, Stephen Colbert, who is Catholic, presented “The Dope on the Pope” – a sort of explainer on the pontiff. In a concert on Thursday, Madonna dedicated a song to “Popey-wopey.” And even Kim Kardashian weighed in Thursday on Twitter: “The pope is dope.”

Pope Francis has sought to highlight the work of the personnel at the Vatican by bringing along a Holy See employee as part of his entourage during overseas trips. On his trip to South Korea in August 2014, he took along a switchboard operator. On this trip, the lucky person is a woman who is an artist in the mosaics workshop of the Vatican.

Over the course of the Cuba-U.S. trip, the pope will have given 26 speeches, taken seven flights, flown over 11 countries and slept in five different places. He will have used the popemobile 14 times. It was his 10th overseas visit since he was elected pope in March 2013, and it falls almost exactly 50 years after the first pontifical visit to the U.S., when Pope Paul VI went to New York to address the United Nations in October 1965.